There's no question that Call of Duty: Warzone has been a massive success story for Activision, a huge source of revenue and player retention for the franchise since it's addition early last year. However, for all of the success and popularity, the mode has had its fair share of issues from hackers to glitches and bugs. One of the most pressing issues which continues to exist over a year later remains the mode's overall file size.
A source of much of the community's frustration as well as memes over the past few months has been the ever increasing hard drive demands of Call of Duty: Warzone as well as the games Modern Warfare and Black Ops Cold War. Each update also seems to have it own staggering size requirements, an unfortunate side effect of creating an experience that seemingly never ends. With each update, the game continues to expand and balloon outward, though it seems Activision is again taking steps to reduce the overall online footprint.
As part of the mid-season update for Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War and Warzone, Activision revealed that the patch introduces some optimization elements and reduces the overall file size across each platform. While the company still recommends uninstalling unused game modes for the best results, this update features data optimization and new content pack streamlining to reduce the overall file size once the overly large, one-time update is installed.
While many players will be different, Warzone-only players should see a 10.9 GB reduction on the PlayStation consoles, 14.2GB on all three Xbox consoles, and 11.8 for PC players. However, for players using both Call of Duty: Warzone and Modern Warfare, the gains will be even more dramatic. PlayStation and PC users will see a 30.6 GB reduction while Xbox players will be getting back 33.6GB.
One thing to note is that players who want to continue playing all three main modes, campaign, Spec Ops, and Multiplayer, they'll need to reinstall all optimized content packs. Unfortunately for those playing Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, this update does not include and file reductions.
While the extra space should please players, Activision appears to have even more big plans to keep engagement levels high. For weeks now, rumors regarding a nuclear even in Verdansk has been circulating and with each weekly update, the zombie horde continues to expand throughout the map. Ultimately, players expect the map to be overrun by the end of the season, prompting a new PvE style mode where the ending will result in a last ditch nuclear strike to wipe the map clean. In its place will be a brand new map in the Ural Mountains inspired around the Black Ops style.
Call of Duty: Warzone is available now on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.
Source: Call of Duty